New Song Everyday, For a Year

DannaRichards

There are not many Youtuber's who have the time, dedication and discipline to make a video every day. There are even fewer with the talent to be able to make a new song everyday. DannaRichards has been uploading a new song everyday since June of 2010, her goal is to do it for a whole year. After 128 uploads, she only had 110 subscribers, that is until Shay Carl found out about her (thanks to Scott). Shay liked her music and gave her a shout out, a couple of hours after that she jumped from 110 subscribers to 3,047 and counting.

DannaRichards has been singing her whole life, she started playing the piano at the age of 3, and the guitar at 17. She doesn't receive any help when writing her songs; except for a few where she gives credit. When asked how her experience has been so far she answered "Honestly my experience has been exhilarating and exhausting. I am working full time and also writing a song a day so I often only get 4 hours of sleep!- It is literally like a second full time job but I am honestly loving every minute. I am running on pure adrenalin." When asked if she has ever thought about quitting "I have SO many days (more often than not) that I don't feel like it! I'd rather go out with friends or watch a movie with my boyfriend, and I just can't. I am 100% committed!".  

She has a lot of support from her friends and family. "I have a ton of emotional support and people behind me and that REALLY drives me". Danna's favorite songs include "Eye to Eye", "Paper Airplanes" and "Stronger than you think". Her favorite video is "Say what need to say" which she says took her the most time to edit. Her advice for aspiring artists "don't be afraid to write crap. It takes me about 6 or so crappy songs to get to the good ones so just finish them and get them out there, and then one day you'll wake up with a tune in your head sent from the Gods"

Danna started making songs for youtube because she liked the challenge and wanted to improve her song-writing skills. "The music industry is turning inside out and some people look at it as "we are screwed" and I look at it as opportunity. A reason to try something different."

On Shay Carl giving her a shout out she had this to say " I am so incredibly thankful for Shay Cal giving me a shout out! I am still in shock! I hit a milestone today! I got my first "this song is a piece of crap" and while most people would take offense, I like that fact that it's not just my family and friends listening :) I am still trying to process it! Shay Carl is so hilarious and I am flattered and so incredibly thankful that not only he brought me so many fans, but am also thankful for his friend Scott for mentioning me to him! So Shay Carl ... thank you thank you thank you!"

When asked if she wanted to mention anything else, "I would just mention my Kickstarter page because the donations have hit a hault and if I don't raise all 16,000 I don't get any of it. I attached the video below so you could see why I'm raising the money. Kickstarter is a website that helps art's projects get funded! I have 22 days to reach my goal of $16,000 as of now and am only at 2,700. If I don't raise all of the funds I don't get ANY of them so it's looking like a long shot right now but we will see."

If you would like to help Danna by donating here is the link to that page: 

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1307612040/my-nine-to-five-365-songs-in-365-days

Always Have To Be Number One.

As far as I can remember, whenever I did anything I always felt like I had to be the best. It didn't matter what it was, it could be a race, video game, or wrestling with my brother. I remember one time in 5th grade, the whole class had to read a passage from a book and the last sentence was "and I yelled 'help!'". Everyone in the class would whisper "help!" and I thought to myself, I can read that part better. Then when it was my turn. I yelled it at the top of my lungs and everyone in the room jumped, including my teacher. Everyone just had a laugh about it afterward. I never came to the realization of how competitive I could be until recently.

There is a Youtube competition being promoted by Youtubers Rhettandlink called "Supernote" where people try to hold a note as long as possible for their team. I am in team Shaytard Rebellionites. The top place was 84 seconds. And I wanted to beat it, so I hyperventilated over and over again, and each time I would do better and better. Finally I was able to get up to 94.7 seconds getting me first place. I would have kept trying to do better also if it weren't for the fact that I felt like I was going to pass out. (can be seen down below)



I like my competitive nature, it always pushes me to be the best that I can be. I just need to focus it on less trivial matters, and use it to accomplish my goals.

World of Warcraft - My 49 Twink Warrior

World of Warcraft is the biggest MMO (Massive Multiplayer Online) computer game in the market. My brother got me into it in the summer of 2006. He used to tell me over the phone how awesome it was. The more he would explain it to me the more I would want to play it. Once I was finally able to play it, I wasn't able to put it down. Like millions of others, I was addicted.

I decided to make a warrior. Because my brother's main was a warrior and I liked the idea that I could wear whatever armor that I wanted. It was really hard for me at first, I would always die. And because of this, I never got into questing, I hated it. I was level 20 when battlegrounds were first released. I joined WSG first the first time not really knowing what to expect. After the first game, I queued for another, then another and another. I couldn't stop pvping. It was all that I would do.

I finally got tired of getting owned by everyone who was much higher level then me. So I decided to start questing again, to level up and get some better gear. Once I finally reached level 30. I started playing WSG once again. And it was all that I did in WoW for the rest of the summer. My brother would always try to convince me to level and try the other stuff that the game had to offer. I didn't want to because I would always see him in raids and he wouldn't be able to leave until they finished the whole thing, which would take hours. So I stayed as a 30 warrior in WSG.

When I left back home for school. My brother called me again a few days later and told me that he accidentally leveled my warrior out of the bracket. I was pissed. Because I knew that once again I would have to quest in order to be competitive in battle-grounds. Once summer came again, I went to my brother's house and started questing once again, Blizzard announced that it was going to change the brackets from 20-30, 30-40 etc. To 10-19, 20-29 and 30-39 etc. So it didn't matter that my brother leveled me out, because I was going to get pushed out of the bracket anyways.

So I was going to become a 39  warrior. Unlike the first time I actually looked into what was the best gear for my level. That's when I was introduced to twinking. I got all the best gear and started pwning as a level 39 warrior. And once again, that's where I stayed for a long time. After months of playing almost everyday, I decided that I wanted to get plate. So for the first time, I actually decided to level out of the bracket and become a 49 warrior.

I leveled mostly through dungeons, I found it a lot easier and more fun than questing by myself. After days of grinding, I finally got all the best gear for my 49 warrior. And I loved it, it was a huge difference from 39. I had a lot more abilities at my disposal and I would do a lot better against other classes. I also found out about battleground forums in this time. And I spent as much time on there as I did playing the game. It was a great community of fellow twinks. I played for many more months as a 49 warrior. And I loved it, then once day, Blizzard released a patch that killed twinking; patch 3.2

Many people decided to level after twinking was killed. But I couldn't bring myself to do it. I had too much memories in that bracket, so I along with a few others, decided to turn off my exp gain. And leave him in a dead bracket, where he would never be able to play another game again. I stopped playing WoW altogether after that. I miss playing my warrior and the community, and I hope that one day, I will be able to play him again.

The love of fright

My favorite genre growing up has always been horror. My earliest memories are of me sitting in the living room with my family watching scary movies. My dad would always rent scary movies, he loved them just as much as I did. Even though I would always have a hard time going to sleep afterward, I could never pass up the opportunity of watching a scary movie.

My favorites involved zombies, ghosts, and killer dolls. I would just love getting scared. What I loved more than getting scared, was scaring other people. I loved telling scary stories to my younger cousins and family members, especially my younger brother. I remember the thing that used to scare him the most (including me). Was the clown from the movie "It". Whenever he would annoy me I would just tell him "Stop, or I'll tell you a scary story." and it always worked. He hated it when I talked to him about the clown (Pennywise). And I loved talking to him about it.

The first books I ever read that weren't required by school were horror. I remember I used to go to the library and walk up and down the horror isle. I saw a book and the title immediately grabbed my interest; The Blair Witch Project. I got checked it out. I went home and went straight to my room. I laid on my bed and read the whole thing in one day. I loved it, I ended up reading the whole series.

To this day, my favorite activities include being scared and scaring people. I took my younger cousins and brother to the cemetery near my house in the middle of the night. I parked the car in the middle of the cemetery and turned off the headlights. We would sit there just looking all around us to see what we would see. Nothing would ever happen. But we would still always have a good time.

I have seen stuff before that I have never been able to explain; a ghost in my hallway with it's arm extended as if it were trying to hug me, and many other creepy stories. But those will be better saved for another blog.

What embarrasses a 6 year old these days?

Yesterday I had to pick up my 6 year old nephew from school since his mom just got a new job at a local hospital as a nurse. She had already talked with him beforehand and let him know to wait for me. Once it was time to pick him up me and my brother headed to the school. There were a lot of kids waiting in front of the school for their parents to pick them up. After a bit of searching I finally found him playing with a group of friends in the back. I called him over to us and we started walking back towards my car.

My brother sat in the passenger and my nephew in the back seat. As we were driving away, I looked in the rear view mirror and I saw him slouching as though he was trying to hide from someone. At first I thought that a girl he liked was walking by, so I asked him "Why are you hiding?" and he said "Because I'm embarrassed." I couldn't figure out what he was embarrassed about so I asked "What are you embarrassed about?" and he said "I'm embarrassed because people are going to think that I have 2 dads.".

I wasn't expecting that answer at all. I told him that having 2 dads is nothing to be embarrassed about and that lots of kids all over the world have 2 dads or moms. I decided to just leave it at that and let his mom decide how much she wanted to explain to him. Afterward we went to Dairy Queen to get some ice-cream and I couldn't help but laugh when I thought about again.

Fitness your health

I have been working out since I was 10 years old. I remember I used to pick up laundry baskets full of clothes and pretend that they were weights. I didn't know what it meant to be healthy. All I knew was that picking up heavy things gave you muscles, just like my favorite superhero; Superman! Now that I am older, I work out not for my physique, but for my health.

I feel like too many people these days work out for the wrong reasons. Many do it because they want to be "buff" and attract the opposite sex. But the worst reason people work out is because they don't want to be "fat". When a person works out, they should work out because they want to be healthy, not because they don't want to be fat. They should look at the physique that they acquire through working out as the side-effect of being healthy.

Hollywood has portrayed the message that all that matters is looks. And when looks is what is emphasized it leads to individuals taking steroids and doing other activities that is detrimental to one's health to achieve that certain physique.That's what makes working towards a physique so dangerous.  It is the wrong attitude to have. I was guilty of this growing up, but now I have realized what is truly important is my health

When you put your health at the top of your list, you are more likely to stick with your work out routine. It will make you focus more on how you feel and not how you look. And before long, you will have your good health, and your physique will follow.